Tag Archives: Elmo Nüganen

Tangerines (2013)

Tangerines review.

My Ratings: 4/5.

War has always been the cause for destruction, be it human lives or the season’s crop – the Tangerines.

The story takes place during the War in Abkhazia (it was in 1990, the time when Abkhazia is trying to get separated from Georgia); and while most people fled from the war-affected villages, a couple of men from Estonia stayed back to harvest the tangerines.

The old man Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak) who makes boxes for tangerines and his friend Margus (Elmo Nüganen) who plucks the fruit and parcels it.

Ivo, a man with a kind heart gives shelter to two injured soldiers, a Chechen mercenary named Ahemd (Giorgi Nakashidze) and the other from the opposite camp – a Georgian soldier Niko (Misha Meskhi).

Tangerine-posterThough both these men were indebted to Ivo for saving their lives but they also desperately wanted to kill each other; but of course not under the roof of their savior (as they promised to Ivo they wouldn’t).

An intense drama unfolds; a tension of violence in the air with a light comic touch – a war film (or more of an anti-war film) which shows the minimum amount of actual violence/war but still manages to engage the audience.

With a dramatic and unpredictable ending and superb performances this film not only portrays the devastation of the civilians in a war zone but also questions the necessity of war in general.

A film with a remarkably strong message.

Directed by Zaza Urushadze Tangerines (original title Mandariinid) was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film in the Oscars as well as in the Golden Globes.

A superbly shot film with a brilliant story of human relations tested in the tough times of the war.

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